Boston, MA – The Boston Red Sox and the World Series on FOX both delivered impressive Game 1 victories last night.

World Series Game 1 on FOX scored an 8.6/14 national household rating/share and averaged 14.4 million viewers according to Nielsen Media Research. Opening night of the 2013 Fall Classic is up 13% in rating and 18% in viewership over last year’s 7.6/12 (12.2 million viewers).

Last night’s game propelled the network to a first place finish in primetime television Wednesday night, averaging an 8.9/14 from 8:00 PM – 11:00 PM. That marks FOX’s highest-rated and most-watched primetime broadcast of the season and the network’s most-watched primetime broadcast since January for American Idol.

Last night’s game opened with a 7.8/13 which was 16% ahead of last year’s initial tune-in (6.7/11). Ratings peaked at a 9.6/15 with 16.3 million viewers at 9:30 PM ET, as the Red Sox built an insurmountable lead.

According to figures released by Nielsen SocialGuide, Twitter activity for last night’s World Series Game 1 also saw impressive increases over 2012. The game drew over 793,000 tweets (up +6% from 2012 World Series Game 1) from more than 360,000 unique authors (up 12%) and was the No. 1 social telecast of the night in all categories.

Boston led all markets with a 39.7/61, the highest mark for a Red Sox game since Game 7 of the 2008 ALCS, followed by St. Louis’ 36.0/54. Providence (34.6/52), Hartford (20.8/32), Fort Myers (11.9/19), Kansas City (11.1/18), Richmond (11.0/16), Memphis (10.4/15), Greensboro (10.3/15), and Cincinnati (10.1/16) round out the top ten markets for Wednesday night’s broadcast.

Coverage of Game 2 begins Thursday, Oct. 24 with a special World Series edition of FOX Sports LIVE at 7:00 PM ET on FOX Sports 1. Coverage on FOX begins at 7:30 PM ET from Fenway Park in Boston.

The game peaked in the second inning, if it would of not been a blowout the audience would of grew throughout the game and the numbers would be much higher.

AllOfHerTw!st

Bessball been berry, berry good for FOX.

jay

Meh. Not that good. Way lower than 2009 which had 19 mil for game 1. About the same as cards vs rangers.

BBFan

There are better #’s to come. There’s no way STL is not going to bounce back. I’m just wondering if Bos vs Stl is a bigger draw than Bos vs LAD, Bos vs NYM. There are a lot of Cardinal fans across the nation. It’s easily one of the best small market team stories in America.

aj

well neilson said that in the 2nd inning had 16.3 viewers. had the game stayed close, the ratings would have been much much higher. Close game tonight has 17-18 viewers

Baseball4Ever

I LOVE BASEBALL….

E

Expect the numbers to go down tonight. The NFL has a Thursday night game. Even though it’s a terrible matchup the gamblers will be watching.

aj

@E i disagree. thursday night football wont hurt mlb too bad tonight. game stays close 16-18 million. They tried to have a huge night last night before the 2nd inning blowout.